Conspiracy buffs have long insisted that the death of grunge legend Kurt Cobain was more than just a suicide, and now former Seattle Police Chief Norm Stamper has added fuel to the fire.

Stamper, who was in office at the time Cobain died, has been interviewed in a new, non-Montage Of Heck documentary called Soaked In Bleach, which investigates the dubious but nonetheless popular conspiracy theory that Cobain was actually offed by his wife, Courtney Love.

“We should in fact have taken steps to study patterns involved in the behaviour of key individuals who had a motive to see Kurt Cobain dead,” Stamper admits in the film [via Alternative Nation], which examines the rock star’s tragic end through the eyes of private investigator Tom Grant, who was hired by Love to locate Cobain after he first went missing.

“If in fact Kurt Cobain was murdered, as opposed to having committed suicide, and it was possible to learn that, shame on us for not doing that,” he said. “That was in fact our responsibility.”

While the veteran cop does not go so far as to allege that the Nirvana frontman’s death was in fact the result of foul play, he does admit to having regrets about the way the initial investigation was handled, and reckons it’s worth a second look.

“It’s about right and wrong, it’s about honour. It’s about ethics,” he says. “If we didn’t get it right the first time, we damn well better get it right the second time, and I would tell you right now if I were the Chief of Police, I would reopen this investigation.”